


Blue Smiles

by settely



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alcoholism, Depression, Drug Abuse, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 02:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/settely/pseuds/settely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A couple of months after the war MShepard develops a severe case of PTSD while Kaidan is away on duty; he does not want any help because of his hero status and eventually turns to drugs Aria gladly provides; an ongoing fill of a kink meme's prompt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Darkness

There are days that keep repeating themselves. An artificial sunrise; a kiss onto the cheek from someone seen only for a moment; congratulations and references, emails thanking for some interference some time ago that concern the army, family matters and other gibberish. They all can be considered a flicker of colour unnoticeable in the sea of greyness encircling senses every other moment. Each of them should matter more to you, should prove that all of what you have done had sense. Such a thought ceases to be able to function independently without a good dose of sarcasm, however.

People say they envy you. After all, a good position and abilities such as yours are a miracle not so easily obtainable, something vital to preserve the universe among other god-like figures. You are a star. You are everything to many. Some soldiers know your name from the vids, other recognize the face from Alliance's adverts, a few mistake you for the one being in charge of the whole army. You cannot blame them but the knowledge does not make it easier to swallow the lump and flash an apologetic smile while clenching a fist in one of your pockets. Easy there, Shepard. A symbol cannot be angry at its followers, now can it? You tell yourself to relax, time and time again, because there is no need to have a nervous breakdown in front of a whole crowd that hears the name but cannot put a face to it. That fantasizes about an idea and not a human being made of flesh and blood like them. It is how it is, no matter the epoch and no matter the actors currently occupying the scene among different and yet fitting settings. After all, human nature always stays the same.

A half-finished glass of whiskey glimmers underneath the neon lamps in front of your outstretched palm while the silhouettes of the asari dancers melt within the smoke a few metres ahead. You cannot remember much from what you have been doing tonight. Got a few shots and smokes the head feels already quite heavy with, saw what could have been seen and later gossiped about. Hah, Shepard, the saviour of the galaxy drowning his sadness in a siddy pit not much more honourable than Chora's Den. At times, you like to toy with the thought of someone noticing your hunched down back at a far-away table, someone coming all the way up and running a sympathetic hand across the back. Someone ready to say that you could not have done anything differently, that you were a hero the moments you could have been and there is so much more awaiting, you just need to reach out a hand and try to grasp at it. You know, however, that you would sooner brush the person away than listen to anything they would have to say. It is easier to dream such situations than act upon anything resembling. A back-up plan for an mirage seems less pathetic than chickening out in real life, than looking closer and admitting there is a problem. There is no problem, none that you are aware of. At least that is what you like to tell yourself while the weekend's hours tick away and the drinks start slowly to change their colours and flavours.

It is all about survival now, is it not? A path of red, green, blue or white. Colours spinning, music pounding louder, loud enough to make the screaming fade in the darkness. Thirst for more drinks, more movement, more thoughts concentrating on the familiar silhouette easily seen there, at the back of the bar, in front of you, everywhere. It is your private little heaven. No one should be left alone without the possibility of seeing just a glimpse of one, right?

Aria is always there, lurking right in the shadows and smiling her Cheshire cat's grin. She knows what makes you tick nowadays and easily obtains anything one might ask for in a place like those of hers. Turian handiwork, krogan's toxic things some tried experimenting with, human sources of good quality, you name it, she gives it to you at half a price.

Aria says that she can comfort you because she knows how. A piece of heaven in Purgatory, a piece of hell in Afterlife. The powder silences the doubts for a moment, a dose lasting for more than a couple of shots and lazy smiles you meet the crowd with. Relaxed. Smiling. Blind and helpless but at least not sobbing in the corner. It is better this way. It is always better not to think too much.

You can feel her eyes on you when the music floods in and your limbs start living on their own. You do not have to worry now. It is all in the movement, all in the moment. It is you, the pounding of your heart and people pressing forward, from the back and sideways. There is finally silence in your head. Thane sips a drink in the far corner of the room, Mordin shuffles cards in front of laughing Ashley near the entrance. Everything spins, spins like in those old Alliance machines on Earth that get marines ready to fly and it's blissful.

You feel empty and so are your pockets when you leave for the hotel in the morning. There are a bottle and a few pills waiting for you on the table. They are your stash for the upcoming week. The blue one for the smile. The yellow one for the manageable void. The green one for sleeping in silence after the boy fled from your dreams. Nowadays it's only darkness filled with the rambling of gunshots, whispering and frozen frames composed of the vids and memories. There are faces that you might have seen only once, strings of words dissolving into buzzing of an out of order radio and shadows of silhouettes out of your reach. You keep on running, keep on turning your head round and round but there is nothing you can do and so the thresher maw shushes the agonizing soldiers, Kelly screams while being trapped inside a glowing coffin and Toomb's haunted mutterings cease to be heard. Every night, with bodies swapping their destinations and owners, phrases uttered at you with difficulty but the guilt stays as active as before. Suffocating. There is nothing that can bring you back from sleep if you do not take the already known for a while paths, do not try to shush the noise. Blackness is all you need, blackness like the silk dresses the strippers on higher levels of Omega wear, the colour of desolated planets' skies at night with no visible stars hidden behind cloudlets of space dust.

You can wait some more weeks to be able to see the sun again, the real, beautiful and solid one. After all, the sun would come back, right? Even though it kept silent for the past days, for the past month and your ways parted with unsaid things on minds, not looking back until it was too late to catch the other's eye. It would be sunny once again, after the prolonging night. And the meds? Well, they made it all bearable and worth waiting.

 

 "You alright there, Loco?"

Vega asks you on Monday, when the shore live ends and the Normandy welcomes you back with its cold metal and plastic screens. You cannot be bothered to answer, not that there is any easy answer. He is cleaning the guns while Steve taps at the computer, smiling when he notices you coming their way. The expression changes quickly into one of concern though but before anything more happens, you grab the rifle you came for in the first place and stumble blindly back towards the lift. As long as a problem isn't spoken of or named, it does not exist. It is a simple truth, something frightening and yet soothing. No talking, no problem.

 

Easy as that. You can live on with little white lies that end up unspoken anyway. It is better for everyone. Everyone, including yourself.

You see questions in people's eyes as each member of the crew passes you on the corridor, their eyes on your back, nearly fishing into your pockets to know what is happening. Whispering has began, hushed talks silencing themselves the moment you come into the mess hall or stroll down to the cargo bay just to have thousands of questions explode at once.

_Need anything, Shepard? Why, you are looking so pale, man, something's bothering you? Are you alright, Commander? Maybe we should change the menu or get you some supplements? Loco, you not gonna faint in the toilet, right?_

You are thinner than you used to be as a teenager, cheekbones standing out sharper and casting visible shadows on the rest of your face. Muscles started to diminish a while ago, skin tautening over the lankier bones like white linen on a hospital bed. There is a ghost of the old Shepard enclosed in the mirror every time you look into it, no matter how many times you try to wash the nightmare away with icy cold water. Your hands shake. You feel heavier and more tired after a whole peaceful day than you used to after not having slept a wink in three days. People speak too loudly. Light is too bright in the morning and the silence of the ship does nothing but irk you. You do not go out of your cabin if it is not necessary, if it is no emergency.

You are a walking zombie. A husk with its bowels still intact and a shred of mind left to be toyed with by unreal fantasies.

You try not to appear too changed. The clothing gets anonymously sent to some tailors on Ilium to be taken in, the narcotics and alcohol appear in neat packages directly shipped to private quarters. Everything is well-organized and strictly private. Nobody has to see you rot alive, nobody has to help you deal with whatever haunting dreams. All of this is your own problem. Always has been. Since the pact with Cerberus you tend to get messages instead of direct conversations when someone is upset or in need. This time, no matter how hard you'd like to protest, it is not different at all. Liara wants you to eat something healthy, maybe see a human doctor on the Citadel. Tali asks about the core while babbling about the newest ships in the Flotilla and the news she got on your health from the crewmen. Nothing is wrong though, of course it is not. How could it be anything but alright by someone like you, Shepard. Don't be silly, ladies! You write sloppy and brief replies to each email someone concerned wants to entertain another hollow evening of yours with. Like James with his proposals of a boxing match like in the old times (you cannot hold a glass steady, you cannot run two flies of stairs without feeling light in the head); Steve and going out to Afterlife (Aria cannot see you with someone familiar, nobody can see the best dealers at the entrance who know you on a first name basis and offer discounts just for the Saviour of the Galaxy) or EDI and her questions (your attention span is poorer, words keep fleeing your grasp).

* 

And one day, the supplies end and shipping is not available. You have to go get the needed fix yourself and an excuse for infiltrating a strip club quickly appears on the horizon. There have been a couple of murder cases in the district, but no, you will be fine on your own. You are a Spectre, you will manage with drunkards, don't worry Garrus (and you can tell he is worried, what with the way he keeps observing you during the meals and after the dullest kinds of missions, as if waiting for you to finally collapse and die of exhaustion).

In the end, you do not have to look for Aria for too long. She is sitting with some human strippers at one of the far corners of the counter, a sea of drinks occupying at least half the surface. She smiles upon noticing your hunched silhouette elbowing its way through the dancing crowd.

 

“Something new for you or just the usual, Scout boy? Or should I rather say, Mr. Soul of the Party?" The rhythm is too monotonous in your ears, head already nearly split open because of it while she is just smiling her indulgent grin. You hate her. You hate the asari that can pluck at each of your strings the moment she wants to, the moment she feels like doing so because otherwise, she might grow bored one day.

 

"I- I need something to make the void go away." Words stumble out of your mouth with no grace and if it was not for the drugs, you would not even try to utter them. The saliva feels heavy on the palate, too heavy to be able to think straight and the mob smacking your back with their outstretched limbs does not help much either. "I need more. I'm out of everything you gave me."

 

Her eyes grow cold when you finish. She gulps one of the drinks quickly, waving for the women to go dance or sit somewhere else for the moment, you neither know, nor care what the gesture means exactly. You come closer, obscuring her silhouette from the eyes of the dancers, something feeling only as natural as foreign when she whistles at a few Batarians from the other side of the room. No idea how they managed to have heard anything over the noise, they come and empty the contents of their pockets in front of you, their armours revealing uncountable amounts of neatly covered pockets and holes full of Red Sand, upgraded forms of human cocaine, synthetic heesh and other goodies.

 

"Paying now in credits or rather later in nature, Commander?"

 

Your hands shake when you reach for your Omni-tool, at least ten thousand credits to be spent on things good enough only for the rest of the month. Suddenly though, a hand seizes your wrist and your hips get pushed towards the counter, the grip tight and merciless. Whoever it is, they must be a marine to twist a bone as skilfully and unnoticeably. Or maybe an assassin. You try to struggle but you have no strength. Nobody has noticed anything being wrong yet as Aria sips another drink, looking disinterestedly at the dance floor and the Batarians have gone a few moments earlier.

Then a question ignites itself like a match in your hand. Do you want to have anyone notice a death sentence conducted on you, Shepard? Do you really want that? Maybe it would be better to have your stomach punctured in a nameless club for narcotics than have to go back and keep on pretending that everything is alright. That you can fix anything even though it hurts just to wake up and go round the deck with everybody starring, when there is nothing left to be said. Nothing that could look good enough or sound reasonable enough to anyone but you yourself.

There are marines dancing nearby, doing those crazy movements people from other walks of life tend to joke about without hesitation. Maybe you could call out to them, maybe they would help a shadow like you, maybe they would just laugh and pretend that nothing wrong is happening. After all, you are just Shepard. You are not invincible. Once dead, later resurrected, you can end up dead anyway any minute, even this very one.

 

"Aria, stop selling such shit to people. This man is barely able to stand on his feet, you're just using his weakness against him." The voice is muffled, sounding somehow familiar, a faint smell of cologne mixed with sweat. The hand grasping your wrist loosens somewhat, moving to grab at the arm. "It's below even your standards, we both know that."

 

When Aria glances at the person behind you, she does not look alarmed, quite the contrary. Her lips quiver as if she was about to laugh out loud.

 

"Below my standards? I'm certainly not in the mood for this." Her unsettling grimace only deepens when she moves her eyes to you. "Shepard, is there something you haven't told this Scout friend of yours yet?" She then huffs to herself humourlessly. "Just don't start a brawl in here, my boys have just finished washing the bloodstains from the morning."


	2. Blinding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asking questions without an easy answer.

A prolonging moment of silence follows. The asari is looking disinterestedly between the two of you, her dark blue eyes reflecting the neon lights in their sclera.

 

"The hell you are talking about?" The man finally utters, his voice hushed down, all the previous fervor and rightful anger gone from it. If you didn't know better, you'd think it was astonishment and doubt that started to creep into it. Who would care for someone as broken as one of those china porcelain dolls people stopped producing two hundred years ago, though? Why? "Are you being high on the trash you sell?"

 

Aria just smiles while you cease standing in one place like a stick and start trying to discreetly break free.

 

"I have better things to do, thank you, soldier boy."

 

Your black civilian hoody, other than the one with N7 emblemates, slowly slips from the slackened momentarily grasp and the moment you see the chance, you make the break for it. A nicely aimed push and an elbow to the stomach take the guy by surprise and with a dull guttural groan, he backs off, giving you a clear way towards the crowd. You'll pay Aria later, everything you need secured deep within the pockets already and she seems to acknowledge that with a swift nod of her head you register within the corner of your eye. You don't hesitate even for a second and quickly plunge forward, sweaty skin pulsating all around you, dancers inviting you with their hips further and further into the centre of the whole club. Asari, turians, humans. A few drells. You get smacked and grabbed by a few but you don't mind, you won't mind anything that enables you to find the exit. You dare to glance back only once or twice, the lights making it impossible to see anything clearly. There is no brawny silhouette following you as far as you can say, no one intently looking for a nearly dead body among the fountain of youth and health.

Just as you are about to mix with a bigger group of asari in the west, some hands suddenly grip your shirt on the side and the person spins you roughly around. The lights blinds you for a moment, people pouring in two lines beside you, bumping and cursing and it takes a long moment for everything to settle in. All of this is unreal. It must be. Maybe the drinks finally got the better of you, maybe the Cerberus' maintenance cycle went rogue and you are hallucinating because of some malfunction of the cybernetics. Maybe you've already poisoned yourself enough not to be able to breath and this is the last picture before having to close the eyes finally and rest. You feel as if you have just began falling down the stairs and there was just abyss, no solid ground to meet your bones ready to break.

 

"Shepard?" The quiet whisper sounds much more hollow and is perfectly audible in-between the raging music, through the ramblings of the crowd. As the man moves nearer, all the black hair and the stubble, the uniform, even the freckles that look like black ants right above the right brow, everything seems to slightly mist over, unreal. His face, his movements, the wonder in his voice, it's all too much to be just a fantasy.

 

And then there are hands on your face, cool flesh touching dry lips and shallow cheekbones, tracing lines with thumbs and fingernails on the skin. You'd like to run, to move somewhere and maybe die in a gutter but your muscles seem to have frozen. Wanting to flee, to try to act defiantly is better than not knowing what to do, than staring with wide eyes at a face known for so long and yet seeming foreign all of the sudden.

You'd like for Kaidan to slap you, to hit you and maybe scream that he hates you, that you are nothing but scum now. Demand to know how you could have let yourself fall so low, what you are doing here, who you think you are, what about him, what about anything. Anger would be more welcome, venom and hatred than the emptiness and lostness with which he is gazing at you, trying to decipher something you yourself do not understand now. You want the pain, something known and easy to react to thanks to the Alliance experience.

 

"I can't believe it."

 

*

 

Lights of the city twist and turn into a mosaic outside of the taxi's window. Blue sky clashes with the pink of the ads and greenish dresses of some waitresses standing on a skyscraper's roof dance along the blackness of the car's interior. Kaidan's palm sweats in-between yours, fingers clenched vice-hard. His profile is unreadable against the glass, head set straight-forward and unmoving. There's a thumb brushing the back of your hand reassuringly from time to time while the buildings roll forward and the radio buzzes on with some industrial noises.   
  
What are you supposed to do now? It's not what it was supposed to be like. There should be peace, not shame and anger at yourself because you can't control things anymore. You can't control anything. Even yourself and the reactions, the memories, the dreams and old hopes that maybe one day, everything would fall into its place.  
  
Your lips quiver while the shoulders start to shake and it's the first time Kaidan glances at you since rushing from the club, basically dragging you out of there by the arm. On the way to the exit some druggy clutched at his arm, trying to deal something she had stored specially for her favourite war hero but could always split in two for a friend of his. He tried to reason with her for a moment and then to shoulder the way and get going. You stood in the background, unmoving. The itch for taking a drag, for swallowing at least a bit of the stuff was strong, branding the thoughts like iron. You've never been strong. Not strong enough to get through Akuze without others falling, to face the Rachni without having nightmares afterwards, to look at the world after being dead and not cringe at the higher sounds and too flashy screens. The pain grew physical, torturous and while Kaidan was still trying not to hurt the girl and yet not to be stranded in the club forever talking to her, you snorted a neat path of some rainbowish powder from an outstretched palm. Heart stopped racing furiously, the blackness encircling your mind diminished slightly. Now though, the trembling has come back. The dose was too little, you need more nowadays to be able to function, sit peacefully and breathe properly. Shakings wreck your body, face sweats and all limbs feel heavier.   
  
It's cold.   
  
The muscles begin to flex uncontrollably and your breath whizzes. You want to hide. It's not what one's life should look like, not what anybody should look at. Before, the pauses have never been this long, there was always something in the back of your pocket, in another cupboard, something stored somewhere away. Just in case. Now, the hunger's been nagging at your head for more than two days, combined with getting to the port and club in time and thinking of a good cover. In the end, the shit got blown off by the major in a second, no matter the time spent previously on tracking down at least a few people Aria had gotten you.   
  
It hurts to think. To feel anything. The void is bigger than it used to be and the sun, instead of shining through, instead of scaring the shadows away, bakes the skin mercilessly. You'd like to run. To get away as soon as possible and dwell onto hopes all the needed time instead of this, this mess nothing can mend. There is no clear path out, no way leading straight into heaven without the pain needed for atonement. Something to shush down the voices, to have a clear head and yet something after which you could later look other's in the eye.   
  


 

Words spill from your tongue out of order, desperation clinging to the vowels heavily.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything, Kaidan. You must be disgusted, you shouldn't be here, I shouldn't have-"  
  
  
Kaidan does not say anything in return. He brings an arm carefully round your shoulders while you are still muttering and tugs your body close. Your head lolls tiredly onto his chest, the uniform smelling of cologne, a fragrance you've almost completely forgotten by now. You feel tears gather in your eyes as the trembling grows stronger once again, wave coming after wave along with the sensation of phantom temperature dropping. His silhouette's edges are hard against your bones.  
  
  
"I'm here. Shhh, I am here now."  
  
  
You start coughing, breathing becoming harder, the air escaping your lungs much too quickly. Is that blood in your mouth? The taste is horrendous, metallic and much too known to be anything different.   
Kaidan's hand is hot on your face as he looks alarmed at the material, at your face, his eyes glistening with the light from the buildings and lamps. Things become fuzzy, his voice echoing slightly when he calls out, "Hey, hey Shepard. Shepard, stay with me. Do you hear me? John, say something, just-" He flickers his gaze back onto the sky line, just in time to crash into some desolate vehicles that popped out of nowhere in front of yours. "No, NO!-"  
  
  
You feel the impact rather than see the collision. With body rolling onto the metal and head bashing the glass sideways, everything smudging away into a pool of white flash pain. Somebody is screaming, somebody is tugging at your arm but nothing seems real enough to open the eyes for. Hallex could make all of this go away, change everything into a pond of ecstasy, a river never meant to run dry. Anything to escape the suffocating sultry air, the blood oozing from your half-opened lips, the wetness round your legs and chest. Shadows start creeping round your vision, obscuring all the little you can see.   
  
Darkness embraces you close, this time noiselessly, almost like a lover and not a foe. You turn to it gladly, happy to be wanted a least for a while.


End file.
